“Haven, you got a job as a baker. A real, honest-to-goodness baker,” Cora said, just beside herself for her friend.
“I did,” Haven said. “Can you believe it?”
“Yes,” Cora said, just as Alexa said, “Absolutely! When do you start?”
“Soon, but we’re still figuring it out,” Haven said. “We’re going to go over his current menu, and then I’m going to suggest a new one and he’ll order all the supplies and inventory in time for my first shift.”
“Wow, this is so awesome. What did Dare say?” Cora asked.
Haven’s smile was immediate. “That he wanted to be my very first paying customer.”
It was all news that necessitated another round of toasts.
“Look how far we’ve come,” Alexa said. “We should be proud of ourselves.”
Cora laughed, but it was true. They’d all walked through their own paths of fire, and come out the other side. Maybe not unscathed. Maybe with some scars. But they’d made it through. And that counted for something. No, it counted for a lot.
And it made her feel bad for not coming clean with them about everything she’d been through, when they’d been so open about everything that’d happened to them. But tonight was about triumphs, not trials.
At least, that was how Cora justified it to herself.
Between dinner and the movie that followed, they ended up polishing off the bottle of champagne, and a bottle of wine besides, so they decided a sleepover was in order.
Except Cora didn’t anticipate Alexa suggesting that they all sleep on the couches in the living room together, the three of them and Alexa’s weird little cat, too. And that put Cora in the position of having to ask something she’d rather not. “If we’re going to sleep out here, can we leave a light on? I always have to get up to pee and I don’t want to wake you guys up stumbling around.”
“No problem,” Alexa said. “I’ll grab us blankets and pillows.”
“I thought you hated sleeping with the lights on,” Haven said, laughing. Of course she would remember that, given how many sleepovers they’d had growing up.
“Yeah, well, I guess it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.” Not after months of getting used to it, it didn’t. And, usually, it helped keep the nightmares away, because her dad had come after her in the dark. First, where she’d fallen asleep on the living room couch, and then where he’d chased her into her dark bedroom.
Problem was, Cora was so nervous that she’d have a nightmare in front of Haven and Alexa that she never fell asleep. She’d had this problem before, back when she and Haven were on the run, but then she’d brushed off her sleeplessness as keeping a lookout and being cautious.
When morning came, she was absolutely wrecked.
“Did you sleep at all?” Haven asked.
“A little,” Cora hedged. “Just insomnia, I guess.”
“Probably all the excitement of moving,” Alexa said.
“Yeah, probably,” Cora said.
That poor night of sleep no doubt explained why she fell so dead asleep when they got back to the clubhouse—and was still sleeping when Slider arrived to pick her up on Wednesday afternoon.
A knock at her door jolted her awake. “Yeah?” she called, still half asleep.
Slider stepped in, his expression immediately transforming into a frown. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, God, what time is it?” she said, shifting out of bed.
He caught her by the arm, and sank down on the bed next to her. “Seriously, it’s okay. There’s time.”
She dropped her face into her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I slept terrible last night, so I laid down for a nap, but I didn’t mean to sleep so long.”
“If you’re not up for working tonight, I’ll figure something else out,” he said, concern etched onto his face. He wore a thin layer of scruff on his jaw, and somehow it was even sexier than the clean shave had been.
“No, I’m sorry, I’ll be fine.”
But by the next day, it was clear, she wasn’t fine. She was getting sick. But she refused to give in to it, not when Dare and Maverick had returned from their relocation, which meant they could both move a day earlier than planned. This was supposed to be a good day for her. So she pushed on, popped some ibuprofen, packed up all her meager belongings, and arrived at Slider’s via her final clubhouse pickup.
“Welcome home,” he said, smiling at her across the bench seat of his pickup. And oh man, there was that dimple.
“Thank you,” she said. Good thing she was tired, or she’d have a hard time restraining herself from climbing over there and straddling Slider so she could examine that little mark of softness a little closer. “That sounds really nice.”
But later that night as Cora helped Ben take a bath without soaking his cast, she was shivering with fever. “You don’t look so good, Cora,” Ben said, his face too like his father’s with concern shaping his little features.